


Artefact of the Future

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Red Dwarf
Genre: Crossover, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-11-09
Updated: 2001-11-09
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red Dwarf/Tomb Raider crossover. Lara, Hillary and Bryce show up on the Dwarf.</p><p>Dedicated to the RDSS, especially Thesseli and Sevvie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artefact of the Future

**Author's Note:**

> Red Dwarf characters belong to Grant Naylor. Tomb Raider characters belong to someone who is not me (my google-fu failed).

'So who are you bringing in to determine what this is?'

Lara circles the plinth, then circles Hillary, then goes back to pacing up and down the room. 'I don't know, actually,' she says, trying not to sound indecisive. 'I'd like to know who left it on my doorstep to begin with.'

Hillary folds his arms and stares at the strange object resting atop the plinth. With all due respect, he thinks Lara should just ignore this one. She found it lying on the doorstep a few minutes ago, though nobody says they saw it being put there, not even Bryce, who has been getting a tan in the garden. She brought it in wearing gloves, loath to touch it barehanded in case it fell apart. The object is about two inches high, metallic and hollowed out, and about ten by six inches. It has a strange brown dust lying in the bottom of it. It is of relatively thin metal, and looks fragile and old.

Which it is, in a sense.

'Maybe it was Alex...' Lara muses, pacing grooves in the marble floor.

'I'd've noticed Alex,' Bryce pipes up. 'I'd've smelt him.'

'Your inane humour is rather out of place at this particular point in time,' Hillary says.

Bryce rolls his eyes and steps closer to the plinth. 'Wonder what's it do?' He reaches out a curious finger towards the object.

'Don't touch that!' Lara and Hillary shout in unison, both diving to grab Bryce's hand.

They both touch him at exactly the same moment as he touches the artefact.

Seconds later, all that is left where they have been standing is three puffs of smoke.

* * *

'Where's my vindaloo?' Lister wanders into the cockpit from the midsection. 'Cat, you smegger, did you take my vindaloo?'

'I haven't seen your stupid food, monkey-boy,' Cat snaps. 'Get out of my cockpit.'

Tensions are running high amongst the crew. There's Kryten's loathing of Kochanski, Kochanski's disdain of... well, all of them, and a few more combinations, like Lister getting snarky at the Cat. The Cat and Kochanski, not being partial to vindaloo (much), are subsisting on lichen, and in general everyone is extremely bored, irascible, and annoyable.

Lister wanders back out of the cockpit and finds Kochanski sitting at the scanner table, very slowly and deliberately chewing on her greens.

'Hey.'

The noise Kochanski makes in response is possibly an answer.

'How you doin'?'

Kochanski swallows. 'I hate this ship.'

There isn't really anything Lister can say to that. 'Um, have you seen my vindaloo?'

'Yes.'

'Where is it?'

'It accidentally got teleported to a random location when I hit the control panel very angrily with my fist.'

Lister moves to stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. She shrugs away from him, and he gives up. Looks like today is going to be one of the more boring days.

'Sir!' Kryten waddle-skids into the midsection. 'Sir, something very strange is going on down in the cargo bay!'

'You what?'

'The teleporter, Sir, it seems to have spontaneously activated, and has beamed in three humans!'

Lister looks sideways at Kochanski, who has gone back to her moss, and then dead-on at Kryten. 'Krytes, none of this stuff you've been getting has been magic mushrooms, has it? None of the fungi leave a weird taste in the mouth?'

Kryten shakes his head impatiently. 'I haven't been eating them, Sir. And these people really are there.'

'Cat, put the crate on auto-pilot and come with us, we're going to the cargo bay,' Lister calls into the cockpit. 'Kris, are you comin' with us?'

Kochanski lays her knife and fork neatly on the plate, then stands up. 'I suppose I might as well. Who knows, it might be someone intelligent to speak to.'

'Well, I think I've just been insulted,' Lister says jestingly.

'If you only _think_ you have been, then that proves my point.' But Kochanski regains a bit of vim and vigour when she begins to lead the way down to the cargo bay.

* * *

'Where _are_ we?' Bryce asks, recovering first and looking around curiously.

Lara's eyes are gleaming. 'I don't know, but look at that!' She has spotted one of Lister's broken bazookoids hanging on the wall, and steps away from the others to examine it.

'Lady Croft, I think it would be better if you didn't go too far,' Hillary says, trying to sound authoritative and coming out squeaky. 'We don't know where we are, and whatever brought us here may reverse at any minute.'

Lara makes a rude noise with her full lips at him, and continues examining the bazookoid. 'This weapon's broken...' She takes it off the wall, fiddles with a few things, then takes aim at a crate and fires. The crate suddenly isn't there any more, and Lara staggers five yards backwards before recovering. 'Hell of a kick...'

'Get that smirk off your face,' Bryce says. 'Doing that might bring God-knows-what down on our heads.' He is still holding the artefact, and looks down at it. 'Urgh...' He nearly drops it on his foot. 'Where did _that_ come from?'

'What?' Then Hillary sees the brown goop in the object. 'Wasn't that dust?'

'Before.' Bryce is still staring at it as Lara lets off another shot with the bazookoid, having braced herself against the recoil. 'For Christ's sake! We don't know where we are, and what ugly monsters might attack. Now, I know _you_ like that, but...'

'Bryce,' Hillary whispers.

'What?'

'Don't. Look. Behind. You.'

Bryce squinches his eyes shut and reflexively ducks down, covering his face.

And then he hears the sound of laughter. A lot of laughter.

'Bryce, it's okay,' Lara tells him. She puts the bazookoid down. 'They're human... well, mostly.'

'Hello,' says Lister. His Scouse twang makes Lara smile. 'What're you doing here?'

'Um,' Lara says reasonably.

While she's not answering, Hillary takes a step forward and the light from the open cargo bay door falls across his face. Lister lets out a gasp.

'_Rimmer_?'

'Help! A ghost!' the Cat wails, nearly necessitating an underwear change fully twenty minutes before his usual full-outfit change.

'Mr Rimmer, sir?'

'Oh God,' Kochanski says reasonably. 'Let 'em get a word in.' She looks at Hillary. 'Who are you three?'

'This is Lady Lara Croft. I am Hillary, her butler. And this is Bryce, her...' Hillary casts about for a word. 'Nuisance, usually.'

'Thanks, Hilly, man,' Bryce says.

'Nuisance or not, what's he doin' standing on my vindaloo?' Lister says.

'Your vindaloo?'

Lister walks through the boxes and bends to pick up the foil container. 'I was lookin' for this!' A half-eaten poppadom is still sitting in it, and Lister starts eating with relish. Bryce looks mildly sick.

'So... what happened to bring you here?' Kochanski asks Lara, trying not to be overwhelmed by the other woman's... presence. The Cat hasn't said a word yet because he's too busy goggling like an idiot.

'I don't know, exactly. We found that... vindaloo container... sitting on my front doorstep. I was wearing gloves when I brought it in, just in case.' Lara holds up her leather-gloved hands and wiggles the fingers for emphasis. 'But Bryce touched it with his bare hand, and Hillary and I were both touching him, trying to stop him, and then... we were here.'

'Hmmm,' Kochanski says intelligently. Lara has extraordinarily dark eyes. They're magnetising. Kochanski internally shakes her head, trying to keep herself from thinking that way... something she hasn't done in a long time, since one not-so-idle crush back in high school.

Lister has been listening to this, and suggests something that he has found usually helps when there is a knotty problem to be solved.

'Why don't we go down the disco?'

* * *

In this case, the disco is the midsection and a few drinks, coupled with some CDs on Lister's beat-up old player and a bowl of nuts that may be regular peanuts or may be the interstellar variety. Kryten isn't telling.

The visitors accept drinks and look around _Starbug_ with awe. Despite the fact that this ship isn't exactly the best spaceship that one could be on board as a first spaceship, it is still impressive to the archaeologist and her friends.

Even before a couple of drinks, it becomes apparent that Lara and her friends are going to be able to get back to Earth. The teleport settings that an outraged Kochanski set earlier are still programmed into the console, as she sees when she makes a quick trip back down to check. But the visitors decide to stay a little while longer, secure in the knowledge that they can go back any time they wish.

'I wanna go back when you go,' Lister says.

'Sir, that's impossible,' Kryten and Hillary say in unison. Then, 'Go ahead, tell him why.' 'No, you, I insist.'

Hillary finally explains. 'The laws of time just don't permit it. It would have a potentially paradoxical effect, not to mention breaking the laws of causality. Any event that you change in the past may have a catastrophic effect on the future.'

'Hilly, that's amazing,' Bryce says. 'How'd you figure that out?'

The butler gives a half-shrug. 'I read it somewhere. I studied up on time travel once. I wasn't sure if I might need to know about it for Lara's... travels.'

'That's incredible, man,' Lister says. 'You even managed to say that the same way Krytes would.'

Kryten ignores this and also chooses not to snidely point out that he has noticed that Lister is staring at Hillary most of the time. 'More drinks, anyone?'

Kochanski takes another drink -- a margarita, and it's _not_ urine re-cyc, for a wonder - and notices Lister staring at Hillary. Well. She's always wondered about Lister's feelings for Rimmer, and it must be disconcerting to have someone who looks just like him sitting right there. The Cat is dancing away with himself and is completely oblivious to anyone staring at anybody.

'Er... would anyone be interested in a quick tour of the ship?' Lister offers.

'I will.' Hillary gets up gracefully and precedes Lister up to the sleeping quarters deck. None of the others follow, through a decision made by... by osmosis or something. None of them quite know why.

* * *

They make it as far as Lister's quarters before something changes between them.

Lister has a collection of photos up on his wall beside his bunk, just as he had back on Red Dwarf. There's one of him and Frankenstein, one of him and Kryten, and one...

'Who's _this_?'

Lister glances at Hillary, who is standing staring at the photo of Lister, who has one arm companionably linked about the neck of a man who looks very much like Hillary himself.

'Ah. That's Rimmer,' he says.

'But he looks just like me!' Hillary reaches out and touches the photo. Both men are smiling in it, for a wonder, but the droop of their eyelids indicates an extreme state of inebriation. Small wonder, then, that they look happy to be together -- this is an old, old photograph.

'Yeah.'

'You two look very happy,' Hillary says abruptly, turning to look at Lister. 'So where is he now?'

Lister's throat closes over. 'Gone,' he manages to force out.

Hillary looks sympathetic, and puts an arm around Lister's shoulders. 'He's not dead, is he?' Spoken so softly and kindly that Lister feels like he's about to burst into tears.

'No -- no. But he might as well be.' Lister suddenly pulls away and pounds the wall with a fist. 'He went away! Why did he have to go away and leave me! We'd only just discovered each other!' He hits too hard and pulls his hand back, nursing it against his chest.

Hillary puts both arms around him this time, and when Lister looks surprisedly at him, through the sheen of tears in his eyes all he sees is Rimmer.

'You were in love with him?'

Lister nods, then shrugs. 'I'm not sure. Should I really be dumping this on you?'

Hillary rubs Lister's back, briskly, but somehow not clinically. 'It doesn't matter. I'll be gone soon, back home. Besides, I know what it's like to lose someone you love.'

'Old girlfriend?'

Hillary shakes his head. 'No.'

'Wife?'

'No.'

'Oh,' Lister says, the truth finally dawning. 'You're...'

Hillary nods. 'Sssh.'

And in light of this revelation, Lister can blink away the tears and start kissing this man who looks so much like his lost love, but isn't.

* * *

Some minutes later -- and not many of them - two voices cry out and are muffled. Neither of them is calling the name of the man they are presently with.

* * *

'Don't say anything to Bryce,' Hillary cautions as they make their way back down to the midsection. 'He and I have... kind of a thing going.'*

Lister laughs. 'Don't worry, man.'

They get back to the midsection only to find the others, hopelessly drunk, playing Spin the Bottle. Except it's gotten very out of hand, and the Cat and Bryce are watching in fascination as Kochanski and Lara share some very passionate kisses.

'Bloody hell! What's going on here?' Hillary asks.

Lara, at the sound of her butler's voice, jumps back from Kochanski and wipes her mouth, but she is smirking. 'Just playing a game, Hillary, don't worry,' she giggles.

Hillary sniffs disdainfully. 'We'd better be getting back. Believe it or not, there _are_ people back in our world who will be missing us.'

'All right, party pooper,' Bryce says, trying to wink discreetly, and not quite understanding why everyone is suddenly laughing at him.

They make their way to the cargo bay, Lara and Bryce having to lean heavily against the sides of the teleporter when they get there. Hillary sighs, anticipating an interesting time getting the two of them sorted out when they get home.

'Have fun, you guys,' Kochanski says. 'Name a pyramid after yourselves, or something.'

'Keep out of trouble,' Lister says, 'and if a guy called Ace Rimmer should ever drop by, tell him to go home, alright?' He smiles at Hillary, who returns it. Bryce notices the exchange, but thinks nothing of it.

A few buttons are pushed, and the trio vanish.

'Well, that was certainly an interesting experience,' Kochanski says. She giggles, self-conscious.

'Yeah, I can see you were having an interesting experience with Lara,' Lister says.

Kochanski raises an eyebrow and allows him to put an arm around her to hold her up on the way out of the cargo bay. 'And what sort of experience did you have with her butler?'

Lister smiles, and keeps his own counsel. Some secrets are better kept to oneself.

 

* * *

*At least, Thesseli says they do, and I agree with her.


End file.
